


Somewhere Along The Way

by MeanGreenHuntingMachine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 13:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17265380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeanGreenHuntingMachine/pseuds/MeanGreenHuntingMachine
Summary: Dean finds out about Cas' deal with the empty and demands something extraordinary of the angel. What he doesn't know is that Cas has already taken matters into his own hands...





	Somewhere Along The Way

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS FOR SEASON 14
> 
> This is my first attempt at a Dean & Cas fanfiction. I've been watching SPN for quite a while and I adore this pairing. I decided to write this after Castiel's deal with The Empty was made because once again, Cas' life hangs in the balance (what a shocking development).
> 
> Apologies if this sucks, I am not a writer by any means. Comments and/or kudos are appreciated.

Dean had one plan in mind: shower, whiskey, bed.

On paper, it should have been a milk run – but there was no such thing as a milk run anymore.

Despite their resources, which had become richly enhanced over the years and their wealth of experience, every hunt now-a-days was a battle hard fought which meant that every hunt was more exhausting than the last. Dean felt as though his feet were made of lead. His legs were screaming for him to just sit the fuck down for a minute and his back? Well, he ain’t as young as he used to be. Gone were the days when he would thrive at the thought of a hunt. When he was younger, he craved it. Hopping in the Impala for a long haul drive to some little town with a dirt road running through it in the middle of no-mans-land to kick ass and maybe get a lay or two, it was all he needed to get by. But now, something had changed. He just couldn’t put a finger on what exactly that was.

Dropping his bag onto the table in the library, he sagged into the chair closest to him, glancing back over his shoulder at Sam and Jack, who looked just about as bad as he felt. Cas had wanted to return to the bunker with them but Angel 106 – 108 FM sent out the bat signal. With promises of returning later, he headed for the gate to home away from home. He’d never admit it out loud, but lately, he was feeling a pang of jealousy when Cas went back to heaven. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why, but it was there bubbling under the surface when the big H came a’knocking. He tried pushing it to the side, ignoring it until it went away but no matter how hard he tried the notion it was there came back to bite at him. Very few things scared Dean, but his biggest fear by far was his own emotions. After years of hard living, motel to motel and with a dysfunctional family set-up – to say the least, he had learned how to shove his feelings down and keep them there. That too was beginning to change. For the first time in a long time, Dean found himself feeling and scarier than that, allowing himself to feel. Feelings didn’t go hand-in-hand with Dean. It was just a big fat nope. Feelings led to weakness and weakness led to pain. And well, he’d already had a shit ton of that.

His most recent bout with it came in the form of playing the dummy for Michael’s sick ventriloquist act. It had seemed the only option at the time, but having experienced it once, he wished deep down he’d never let himself be taken over like that. It felt like the ultimate degradation. But, with most things in his life, he fought back, got through it and sucked up the aftershocks. But the scars, metaphorical and otherwise were still healing. 

And once he had gotten rid of one pain in the ass, he was met head-on with another: His home had become the X-Mansion and Sam had become the sasquatchian Professor-X. Countless unknown faces gazing up at him as he walked through the door, some in curiosity, some in sympathy and others in dread. These people, after all, had come from an alternative universe destroyed by angels, with one angel in particular leading the charge. The same angel that had just wore him like a new suit. Awkward didn’t begin to cover it.

For the first few weeks, he opted to stay away, hibernating in his bedroom watching movies, eating crap and writing, re-writing and then ultimately deleting texts to Cas who had opted to take Jack away on hunt. His cover story was that he was concerned for the kid’s well-being and curious to see what progress he was making. And while he was sort of concerned and sort of curious, his actual story was more along the lines of, _“I’m freaking out cause there’s strangers in my house and they’re all looking at me funny and they probably think I’m still possessed and you’re my best friend and I need you to talk me down, so get your angelic ass back here.”_ But that seemed a little too blunt and damn it, Dean was a grown man. He could face a couple of strangers. And besides, he was Dean Fucking Winchester, killer of death and Hitler. He wasn’t going to let some fishes-out-of-water scare him away from his own bacon and beer. 

His room just felt nicer, that’s all…

Sam, yawning wide enough to swallow a modest sized city, announced his retirement to bed. Calling dibs on the shower, he patted Jack on the shoulder before sending Dean his customary night time send-off. 

“Night Jerk”.

“Night bitch.”

Jack, his two year old ears now accustomed to the colourful language of the House of Winchester, lowered himself into the seat opposite Dean’s, still chugging the bottle of Diet Coke he persuaded Sam to purchase at their last gas station stop off. Dean couldn’t help but notice a change in the air with Jack lately. He seemed troubled, almost as if he were carrying a burden of sorts. 

His relationship with the kid had developed so much of the course of a year and a half – especially considering how they first co-existed. It still ate at Dean how miserably he had treated Jack those first few weeks of his life. He had tried to cover his anger with sheer blame toward Jack for the people they had lost during the time of his birth. And while blame was definitely part of it, there was something else there too. 

Jack was a Cas 2.0. Seeing him for the first time: his confusion, his stoic presence, his inability to grasp basic human behaviour; it all reminded him of Castiel. Jack was literally Cas’ doppelganger and while it was all shits and giggles now, back then it was like a cruel joke was being played on him. He had to watch Cas die, knee beside his body with his ashen wings scorched across the dirt and he had to wrap him up and watch him burn. All that while his mirror image stood watching from the side lines – it was too much and fuck it hurt bad.

Dean decided one night, with a little help from his friend Mr Daniels, to divulge to Jack the reasons for his aggression. Jack simply shrugged stating he knew as if he had just heard it was going to rain tomorrow. Jack saw right through him. opting to share a little secret of his own: “I wanted my father back, I needed him. But you needed him so much more.”

Under a year old and already telling Dean what he needed. _Fucking kids._

“Penny for them?”

Jack’s ears must be burning.

“Come again?”

“Your thoughts? I’ll give you a penny for them. It’s an expression Mary taught me. A penny is the British equivalent of an American cent.”

Dean pulling himself back into the present, nodding softly.

“Yeah, I think I’ve heard it once or twice.”

When the kid found something new, he got majorly excited and seemed to forget that while it was new to him, it was probably old as shit to everybody else. But his excitement was infectious so he went along with it.

Dean continued, “I don’t think they’re even worth that much to be honest.”

Jack pursed his lips, accepting Dean’s decline to further the topic.

Dean took it as a chance to change the subject.

“Jack, are you alright?”

Jack’s head lifted almost immediately, a glint in his eye.

“Yes, I am also half left.” 

Ignoring that terrible attempt at humor, Dean ploughed on.

“You just seem to be distracted lately. Like there’s something weighting on ya. You know, if you’re worried about somethin’ it’s okay to talk about it, you know, out loud.”

“…Nope. Nothing to tell. I’m fine. Really, I’m happy as a… whatever is really happy? I’m going to go to bed now.”

So much for subtly. 

“Well now I’m definitely interested.”

Jack’s eyes flickered to the hallway toward Sam’s room.

“I – um, I think I hear Sam calling me. I’d better go and-“ Lifting himself from the chair, he all but ran toward the door until he heard Dean’s voice, now much more stern than before.

“Jack. Come back here.”

Dean watched Jack’s shoulders slump, stilling for a moment before reluctantly turning back and sitting down again. His head lifted to reveal a guilty stare. The kid was smart as a motherfucker, but he couldn’t lie worth shit.

“What’s going on?”

“Dean, I can’t tell you. It’s not that I don’t want to, I just can’t. I promised I wouldn’t… I’m sorry. I really want to tell you because I don’t feel right that you and Sam don’t know but I promised…”

Dean’s stomach suddenly felt uneasy.

“Are you in trouble?”

Jack shook his head earnestly. “No. It’s… It’s not about me. Well, it’s sort of about me but it’s not about me but I’m part of it?” 

It’s Dean’s belief that if you start a statement and end it as a question, it’s a sure fire guarantee that you have something to hide. 

“Is it me? Did I do something?”

Jack shook his head.

“Sam?”

“No.”

“…Cas?”

“……..”

Well, fuck.

“Jack. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I-“

“None of this ‘I can’t’ crap, okay? I don’t care if you made a promise. I need to know what’s going on.”

“But I promised Castiel I wouldn’t.”

“Cas made you promise not to tell me?”

“Technically, he made me promise not to tell anyone. So…” 

“And why would he do that?”

“…Beats me?”

Even Jack grimaced at how unconvincing he sounded.

“Jack.”

“…I – he said that you and Sam didn’t deserve to be burdened by what he did.”

“He’s done something?”

Thought he didn’t say it out loud, Jack’s expression said one thing: ‘Shit’.

“Jack what has Cas done? If he’s in trouble, you need to tell me.”

_**Silence** _

“Jack, look, I get that we’re all brought up to swear to keep promises, but sometimes pinkies and spit-swaps be damned, you gotta break ‘em. And rule applies indefinitely if someone’s in danger. So, up and out with it.” 

He could see the gears in Jack’s head processing his words.

“If I tell you, you promise me that you’re not going to overreact?”

“Is it something that would make me overreact?”

Jack squinted almost mockingly at him.

“90% of the time, anything to do with Cas makes you overreact.”

Dean puffed out his chest defensively. Who’d this kid think he was?

“Just tell me what it is!”

An awkward silence fell over them, Dean staring across the table at Jack expectantly and Jack doing everything to avoid his stare.

Just as Dean thought he was going to have to force the damn thing out of the kid, Jack spoke quietly.

“Cas made a deal.”

If Jack had said anything after that, Dean didn’t catch it because all he could hear at that moment was his own heartbeat thumping in his ears. Cas had made a deal which was bad. But Cas had made a deal and didn’t want him or Sam to know about it, which was so much worse. Dean was all too familiar with making deals. Hell, it was a deal that introduced him to Cas in the first place. And wasn’t that just all kinds of fucked up irony? A deal is what got Dean thrown into hell. A deal resulted in him being dragged to the pit by hell hounds who took sickening pleasure in making mincemeat out of his insides. A deal was a dangerous thing and never gave rise to anything good. You only made deal if you were stupid or desperate enough. Cas wasn’t stupid – he was naïve and often had his heart used against him, but he wasn’t stupid. Which just left desperate and what the hell would he so desperately need that he would turn around and make a deal for it? Could angels make demon deals? Would a crossroads demon do that? How does that even work?

“Name?”

Jack, who had been shifting uncomfortably in his chair, cocked his head to the side squinting again.

“Name?”

Dean huffed out a breath. _Don’t get pissed off… Don’t get pissed off…_

“Yes, Jack. The name of the demon that Cas make a deal with?”

“It’s not a demon deal.”

“It’s not a demon deal?”

Jack’s head shook solemnly. If it wasn’t a demon deal then…

“He made a deal… with The Empty.”

Dean’s stomach went from queasy to just about dropping into his ass. The Empty? The place where Cas annoyed some ancient dude so much it told him to fuck off back to the land of the living? None of this was making any sense.

“The Empty? The place where angels and demons go when they die? That ‘Empty’?”

Jack nodded again, his knuckles now a pale white from his tight grip on the Coke bottle.

“Why would Cas make a deal with The Empty?”

Jack’s eyes glistened, almost to the point of tears. He whispered, “For me.”

Try as he might, Dean couldn’t suppress the grunt of frustration that escaped his lips. Where did they put that whiskey again? He really needed that fucking whiskey.

“I’m sorry!”

Dean looked back to Jack and the expression on the kid’s face pained him. A tear was rolling down his cheek, sliding down the cut of his jaw to drop off his chin.

“It all happened so fast and, I didn’t want him to do it but he wouldn’t let it take me. He told it to take him in my stead. I’m sorry Dean, please… Please don’t hate me again?”

Dean’s eyes slammed shut at Jack little whimper. The kid’s bottom lip was quivering up a storm. One wrong word and the floodgates would open.

“Jack?”

Dean lifted himself from the chair and moved around the table to sit on it, facing him.

“Jack?” he tried again, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Why did The Empty want to take you?”

“Because I’m half angel? When I was in heaven with my mom, like I told you guys, Duma, one of the angels came in while me, my mom and Cas were talking but she wasn’t Duma. She was The Empty. It had attacked heaven trying to find me and killed some angels. Cas tried to fight it but it was useless, it was too strong. Then it tried to take me so Cas made the deal.” 

Jack forced himself to look up, Dean’s expression looking aggrieved.

“There’s something else… about the deal he made.”

Dean’s eyes fixed on a particular spot on the floor, nodding once, indicating to Jack to continue.

“The Empty… It said, it would only take Cas when he experienced a moment of true happiness. It would take him when he allowed himself pure joy and let the sun shine on his face. Those were more or less the words it used.”

Stalling for a moment to clear his throat, Jack’s eyes nervously followed Dean’s hand as it slipped into his Duffel bag, pulling out a blade. His eyes remained focused on the floor.

“I… I asked Cas about it and he said that everything would be okay because the chances of him being happy, you know, truly truly happy were very slim. But I don’t know. I mean, that’s not true, right? He is happy or at least, he can be. Can’t he?”

Jack’s eyes shifted from the blade in Dean’s hand to his eyes, which had glazed over with a sort of venom that Jack hadn’t seen in them before. His throat suddenly felt like sandpaper and when he swallowed, it sounded much more anxious than he would have liked. The noise broke Dean from his trance. Gazing down at Jack, he gave his shoulder one more squeeze before forcing a queasy smile. 

“Thanks kid, for filling me in. It’s late. You should head off to bed.”

Dean pushed off of the table and slowly headed toward the kitchen. He stopped in his tracks when Jack asked, “Are you going to talk to Cas?”

Rolling his shoulders once, he glanced back. “Night Jack.”

Jack suddenly felt a pang of guilt run through him. Cas had made him promise not to tell anyone and he’d only gone and told Dean, who was now probably going to lose his ever loving mind once Cas came home. And worst of all, Cas was going to walk right into it completely unawares. Dean was probably going to tell him that it was Jack who told him and then Cas would never trust him again. He felt like curling up in a ball. He had let his father down. He needed to fix this somehow. 

Just as he was about to follow Dean to the kitchen, Dean’s head popped back into the room.

“Remember I told you before why I was anger in the beginning? I never hated you… I was just – I was hurting. I can be a real dick when I’m upset.”

Jack gave him a little watery smile in return. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Dean was going to handle this the way it needed to be.

“Thanks Dean. If Cas comes back, will you tell him I said goodnight?”

Nodding quickly, Dean returned to the kitchen and grabbed a glass from one of the cabinets. It was going to be a long night.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 2 will be posted soon.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
